Chapter three: one week of hell

Each day after the Alpha’s kick blurred into the next, like a never-ending nightmare.

Liora's hip was getting worse. The wound was now swollen, infected, oozing with blood and pus. But no one checked on her. No one asked.

She was still forced to work.

Six days before her birthday, she was made to mop the training grounds after the warriors’ practice. The sun blazed down mercilessly. The blood-stained mud clung to her knees, her hands, her ragged clothes. Sylara stood on the sidelines, sipping cold juice, and threw her empty glass into the dirt.

"Oops," she smiled. "Clean that too."

Liora bent slowly, her body trembling with weakness. Her stomach burned, her lips were cracked so deep they bled when she tried to speak. Her hip gave out beneath her, but she clenched her jaw and crawled.

One of the young warriors laughed, "Damn, is she still alive?"

"She doesn’t die easy,” another chuckled. “Like a cockroach.”

She didn’t look at them. She didn’t cry. She just kept scrubbing with numb hands.

But inside…

A quiet scream echoed in her soul.

Four days before her birthday, Sylara pushed her into the scullery and dumped raw meat into a pot of dirty water.

“Use your hands. No gloves.”

The meat was crawling with flies. It stank. She gagged as she pulled it out piece by piece. Her fingers were bleeding from cracked skin and old cuts, and the raw meat made her wounds sting like fire.

"Faster," Sylara said. "The Alpha wants stew."

By nightfall, Liora collapsed in the corner of the kitchen, shaking uncontrollably from fever. Her breath came in shallow, sharp gasps. No one noticed.

No one cared.

Two days before her birthday, she was forced to carry buckets of water to the third floor, again and again, with her injured hip and swollen arms.

She collapsed on the stairs, and one of the warriors stepped over her like she was garbage.

"I don’t know why the Alpha keeps her around," he said. "Even rogues would reject that thing."

They all laughed.

She didn’t get up right away. She stayed there, curled up, staring blankly at the wall, praying for death.

The night before her birthday, she was finally sent to clean the Alpha’s private study. It was full of glass furniture and mirrors, every surface spotless but still needing “extra shine,” as Sylara put it.

Liora limped inside, rag in hand, heart barely beating. She hadn’t eaten in five days now. Her lips were white. Her skin, ghostly pale. Her eyes were sunken. Her body moved like a dying leaf in the wind.

She reached up to clean the tall mirror above the fireplace…

And froze.

Because in the reflection…

She saw her.

A second set of violet eyes. Silver fur with streaks of lavender and faint glowing patterns across the forehead. Regal. Ethereal. Watching her through the glass.

A wolf.

Her wolf.

Liora blinked. Her hands shook violently. Her heart didn’t leap the way others described it. There was no joy. No warmth.

Only… fear.

And then the voice came—soft, feminine, and sorrowful.

“Liora…”

The wolf’s lips didn’t move, but she spoke directly to her mind.

It wasn’t loud. It was heavy.

Tired.

Wounded.

Like it had been waiting too long in the dark.

Liora fell to her knees, clutching her chest. "Are… are you real?"